Eulogies for the Living
by amitai
Summary: Sam POV, but Joshcentric. Set during ITSOTG Someone was going to have to read Josh's eulogy, and Sam was a speech writer and his best friend. How would he have felt about that? How would he reflect back on Josh's life?


Just a tiny little thing that turned up as I was re-watching (for something like the five hundredth time) _In the Shadow of Two Gunmen_. What Sam might have thought if he was roped in to write Josh's eulogy, and how he might feel.

DISCLAIMER - I do, in fact, own the West Wing. I have a beautiful boxed edition of Series 1, 2, and 3 - but as to the rights of the whole series... well, I'm comin' up blank.

Forgive any English-isms...I hope you enjoy it - and please review!

* * *

You know that you really loved someone when you can't write anything real about them on paper. I promise – when you stand up at their funeral, and you try so hard, and you tried so hard before you got there, to tell everyone about them, but you come up blank.

It's got to be one of the worst feelings every, trying to show people what an amazing person they've just lost. And while you hate yourself for doing it, hate yourself that you're doing this to people, reminding them what they've lost, you know it's got to be done, because they were loved, and they deserve to be remembered. You don't want to forget them.

But, no matter how hard you try, you can't put anything about them on paper.

Words are what I do, they're what I live with, they're what make me sure that I'm alive. If I can still speak, understand, write these things down, I'm alive. But when I'm faced with trying to capture the life of someone I loved on paper, I can't. It might be the cliché, you know – that I can't put them in the past tense. It might be my mind, forcing me not to be able to, because I need to forget; to stay sane, I have to forget, forget all those little details which make a person really alive for you. It might just be that, for now, this is too raw, too real, and if I write anything down, I'll have to admit to it. There are so many reasons why it is impossible to do it. But it's only that raw when you really loved them. It's a mark of how much you love someone when you can't write anything about them except their name.

God knows that I've tried. It was all worked out, at some point, ages ago in this far too long wait, that I would give his eulogy. I was his oldest friend, Leo said, looking so defeated. He'd have wanted it to be me, wanted me to do it, because he'd said to Leo once, when he was joking, like he did so often

"Leo, Sam's the only man I know who can make me feel like he really means the words he's written. He puts himself into his words. The man who gets Sam to write – and read – his eulogy is a lucky man. Sam'd put something of that man into his words. And that's all a man ever needs, really, isn't it? We only need to be remembered, to live that bit longer."

Trust Josh to come up with something like that. Josh… was one of the smartest men I know.

And the kindest, too, when he chose to be. But that was generally only when he thought no one was looking.

* * *

…_Joshua Lyman was my brother. I loved him like I never got to love anyone else, and I want nothing more now than to never love anyone like that in my life, because it hurts so much now. But I'd be an ungrateful man if I didn't repay and use what Josh showed me. Josh once said that to be remembered is to live forever, and to be honest, I don't think I'll ever be able to forget him_…

* * *

It doesn't work. Nothing I've written so far worked. How can I give a eulogy, how can I try and make words into Josh? Only Josh was Josh. There are no words for him, only one, and I can't stand up at the man's funeral and say that Josh is… was… the most alive man I ever met.

* * *

…_He lived life like a loose cannon, believed in everything he did, and everyone he loved. He didn't live by half-measures, he didn't want to, and he barely knew how. He sailed so close to the wind, it was sometimes surprising how he managed to get away with things. He would have died for some of the things he believed, but he never deserved to die like this, he _never deserved to die like this, he never deserved to die.

* * *

I'm going to lose it.

Josh wasn't perfect. He would have hated to be thought of as perfect. But he was… I really can't put it down. I don't know how. Josh was Josh. He was witty, and stupid, and clever, and loving, and loyal, and he was so scared of coming out of his shell and actually being himself – and he always underestimated human goodness, because he'd seen too much hatred. He was a fighter, he would have defended the people he loved against anything, and he was terrified of being hurt again like he was when his sister died. He could be an asshole when he wanted, a real cold bastard, he could be ruthless, and he knew too much for his own good…he was the cleverest man on Senior Staff, though he could act like the stupidest, he never made allowances for other people's weaknesses – he used to treat them like his own, and ignore them. Josh… he could make you love him or hate him with a word. I promise you, the people who tell you that they hate Josh Lyman have never properly met him. If he put his mind to it, Josh could have the Republicans eating out of his hand. Or he could have had.

I can't do this. I can't have to Republicans coming up to me all of tomorrow with those smug smiles, and commiserating on my loss. Christ! I need a drink. No, I don't. I don't know what I need.

I need… I guess I need Josh.

Well, of course I do. That's the whole problem. _He's not here_, and while I don't want to believe that he's never coming back, I have to pretend it, start trying to come to terms with it now, because if I don't, then I'm going to really, _really_ lose it if he dies.

But I never realised how much I rely on him. I need him to come in, like when we were sharing a flat, and tell me that I… that he… that… hell, I don't know. To bullshit with me. To tell what I really needed to do was explain to him the oil stats for Northern Carolina, because Earl Brennan needed them tomorrow, and that no, I really didn't want that beer, or to watch that football game. I needed Josh to walk right into Gage Whitney like he owned it, sopping wet, with that stupid, ancient backpack, and a grin the size of bloody Nashua, right into a partners meeting, and still be as confident as only Josh could. I need Josh helping me with my issues over leaving home, and I need Josh, listening to that Ave Maria by Schubert, and I need Josh, helping me through the details of a campaign. I really don't need to think of Josh sliding sideways with that hole in his chest. I don't need to remember him, as the paramedics shoved him onto the gurney, and start murmuring about probability. I don't need him echoing in my head, delusional murmurs about Nashua. I don't need to remember him dying.

If I do, I have to remember I have to sum up the life of one of the best men I ever knew, and do it well enough that I can be sure it was _him_ that I had written about not, some stranger about whom I could use all the normal platitudes.

I know that he'll survive this. He will.

Won't he?

People don't seem to survive getting shot in the chest. But I have to believe he can, because I can't do this.

* * *

My first words to Josh when he wakes up are 'Thank you'. It's not the first time Josh has helped me with an unpleasant obligation, but I hope to God it's that last time that particular one will come up.

Josh, still groggy and obviously in pain, finding breathing and speaking difficult, whispers, in a hoarse, sleepy voice "Sam… what… are you… talking about?"

"Nothing. Just… go back to sleep. Don't die."

He gives a soundless little breath of laughter, and winces. Stupid man. "Too late… for that."

"Go to sleep."

He does, of course. Anaesthesia doesn't wear off quickly when you've had eight hours or whatever of surgery. Sitting by his bed, in the certain knowledge that he _will_ live, though it will have repercussions for the rest of his life, I write the eulogy of Josh Lyman.

* * *

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